Viticulture: Bordeaux Expansion Review

Jim Gamer
5 hours ago
9 min read

Viticulture: Bordeaux

WBG Score: 9.5

Player Count: 1-6

You’ll like this if you like: Lords of Waterdeep, Anachrony, Stone Age

This is a review copy. See our review policy here

We have previously reviewed Viticulture, the base game. You can check that out here. There have been a number of expansion for this wonderful game already, including the close to essential Tuscany, the co-op variant that we covered here, Viticulture World. As well as a few other small additions such as the Moor Visitors expansion. And now we have this new expansion, Bordeaux. It's essentially just a new board, but with a few cool new features!

Viticulture is a worker placement game that somehow makes running a vineyard feel both relaxing and quietly ruthless, like a chilled weekend in Tuscany that turns into a competitive spreadsheet when nobody’s looking. You pick your “wake-up” spot to set turn order and snag a bonus, then spend summer building your little wine empire by planting vines, upgrading your operation, and setting up your engine. Winter is when the engine purrs: harvest grapes, turn them into wine, let it age into something worth bragging about, then fulfil orders for points. The clever bit is the seasonal squeeze, blow all your workers in summer and winter becomes a sad little nothingburger, but pace yourself and you feel like a genius. It scales nicely, the Grande worker saves you from the worst blocking, and it’s wonderfully thematic, even if the cards can occasionally let someone win by running the “wine-themed theme park” strategy instead of actually making much wine at all.

So, what's new with this expansion?

Bordeaux keeps Viticulture’s heart beating exactly the same way: place a worker (or pass), chase victory points, and turn grapes into glorious bottles while your plans wobble under pressure. But now, we have four seasons instead of two. Wow! But hang on, didn't we have that with the Tuscany expansion? Well, yes. We did. But this is a whole new four season board with a few twists!

The new Bordeaux board plays nicely with almost all other Viticulture expansions, so it feels less like a replacement and more like a new stage to perform on, with the notable exception of Viticulture World, which stays in its own lane with its own board. As a campaign style co-op, World is a hard world to upgrade or expand.

Where Tuscany expanded without much thought to the game length, it was more about the overall experience, Bordeaux feels like Viticulture after it has had a strong coffee (like Tuscany) but also a good chat with a game designer who actually listens, because it tackles the niggles that slow the base game down and turns them into shiny new decisions.

You get a faster start and shorter play time, even with a higher point target! Which is a blessing at higher player counts.
There are now new bonuses that stop the board feeling empty and polite.
Card draw becomes something you steer rather than something that happens to you, coins matter more as real engine fuel as they count to end game points now.
The wake up track is now fully awake, with extra bonuses. And there is a new interesting Trade system.
New experts are introduced, offering a cool way to upgrade up to four worker placement spots, creating your own personal asymmetrical tech-tree.
And the whole system nudges you back toward making wine instead of looping the same non-winemaking tricks so many seasoned players have learned over the years.
It also sprinkles in chances for genuinely positive interaction, and gives you a satisfying end-game pat on the back for smart surplus management, so even those extra coins, grapes, and bottles feel like they are doing something useful right up to the final toast.

What's the Additional Set up for the Viticulture: Bordeaux Expansion

Bordeaux adds a few extra pre-game steps to the base Viticulture pour, mostly to get the new board humming from turn one. First and foremost, use this board instead of the regular one! You pop the first-player token onto the wake-up chart, then after shuffling you reveal two vine cards and two wine order cards as a little “public preview” for the green grape and purple order cards. You cannot snag these face up cards during setup, but they are there to chose from at every other points of the game, rather than simply drawing at random.

Another significant change is that everyone begins with only the six-value field available, while the other fields are already "sold." This prevents players from selling owned fields on the first turn to gain additional money. This tactic is now less critical because players now start with three money and the residual track begins at one instead of zero. Therefore, you will generate at least one money from the start each round.

On top of your normal starting bonuses, and the three Lira, players also have a two-value grape and a one-value wine token, in either white or red. And four cubes of you colour, more on that later!

What are the main rule changes with the Viticulture: Bordeaux Expansion

To use Bordeaux, you basically play normal Viticulture but swap in the Bordeaux board and enjoy the new toys. Also keep two vine cards and two wine order cards face up on the board at all times, and when you draw one, replace it immediately so the market always feels alive. And now run with four season instead of two.

Watch the residual track, because crossing certain thresholds now gives you instant one-off victory points, and you can even earn them again later if you dip and climb back up.

The wake-up chart is juicier too, with bonuses that can affect everyone on the top row, and plenty more bonuses than ever before to age grapes or wine, refresh the face-up cards, let you draw any card type, or even pull one of your workers back from fall to use them again in the Winter! Plus a last-row choice between a card and a victory point. It feels a lot more generous and all helps move the game on faster.

The main new feature is the introduction of Experts. This is a new Spring action where, if chosen, you can place one of your cubes under any other worker placement space to gain a permanent small advantage whenever you perform that action later in the game. You have four cubes, allowing you to hire four experts throughout the game. I noticed that this spot was highly coveted in the early game. They are new, attractive, and it seems most efficient to deploy your Experts on the board as soon as possible. I do wish there was a minor benefit when others use those spaces and prevent you from using them, but perhaps that will be included in another expansion!

The Trade space has become much more intriguing. You can choose a cost and a benefit, but each specific trade can only be executed once during the game. When you complete a trade, you place a glass token to block that trade for the remainder of the game.

A couple of other action tweaks keep things moving: there are now two places to Harvest, in Summer and Fall, and winter now lets you sell a wine token for victory points based on wine type. With a handy points grid for this right there on the board.

The game now ends when someone hits 25 victory points instead of 20, but with all these other tweaks, benefits, and kick starts, I found games to be 15 minutes quicker, even though we had a higher target. And now, at the end, players convert leftover grapes and wine into lira and trade every 10 Lira for one extra victory point, which makes end-game leftovers feel like a proper final toast rather than a sad waste of good grapes.

Is It Fun? Viticulture: Bordeaux Expansion Review

Viticulture: Bordeaux is the kind of expansion that does not try to reinvent your vineyard, it just tidies the paths, upgrades the cellar, and quietly makes everything feel smoother. The base game is still there in full, the seasonal rhythm, the worker placement squeeze, the joy of turning grapes into bottles into points, but Bordeaux adds smart little nudges that get you moving faster and keep the whole table more engaged. Tuscany added the grunt and complexity. And now Bordeaux lets you drink it all in faster.

Face-up vine and order cards make card draw feel less like fate and more like choice, coins become proper engine fuel instead of loose change, and the design gently pushes you back toward actually making wine rather than running the “wine-themed theme park” strategy on repeat. These subtle changes, based on themes of the base game's evolved gripes, seem reactionary to thousands of plays. A development a game can only have if two things are in place.

First, the game is popular enough so that it is played by thousands of people, and multiple times. Gaining knowledge only learnt from repeat plays. People need to get to know the game intimately, so they can forge strategies and gaming patterns. And then the game can adjust to make the ways people start to "game" the game less formulaic and more dynamic.

And second, the designer needs to be able to first acknowledge this is happening and a potential problem, and then second, accept it creates a less than enjoyable game experience, and take the time to find ways to correct it. In many ways, Bordeaux is an expansion to correct the issues the base game's popularity and multiple plays have allowed the designer to find. That seems quite unique in modern board gaming. We have had a few game offers expansion that speed up the start, but not correct dull strategies people often employ within the game.

People who already love Viticulture, especially those who play at higher counts, will probably adore Bordeaux because it speeds up the early game, adds better bonus options, and keeps more actions relevant as the years roll on. For two player or solo, the game is enhanced, but the main appeal to me is the pace of the game with more players.

The Expert system is a lovely bit of seasoning too, benefiting all player counts, giving you a satisfying sense of building your own specialist winery without adding loads of rules overhead. The game now offers some asymmetry in the way you develop your own skills. Of course, each game, players can build different structures, focusing on different strategies. But all are available to all players. With the experts, it is one per player. So what you choose is for you only. You won't always get what you want, and this makes the first player benefit even stronger in the first few rounds. Hence the re-jig of the wake-up track and the benefits that help all players being present for the top spot. This is genius and really makes your choice here crucial. If you are the sort of player who likes having a plan, adapting it, and feeling clever when it comes together, Bordeaux gives you more levers to pull and more reasons to pull them.

If you want Viticulture to stay slightly chaotic and card-driven, Bordeaux might not be your favourite vintage. I do like the simplicity of the two-season base board and do think it will still appeal to some. But I struggle to see many players feeling this way. Bordeaux adds structure, more incentives, and a clearer steer toward winemaking, which can feel like a nudge in the ribs if you love wild visitor-card swings and messy, lucky moments. But for most, it will just make sense. It adds minimal extra setup and only a few more rule wrinkles, so it can be added in seamlessly and taught to new players without much extra fuss. If you have Tuscany already, then this may not be as exciting to you. But if you don't have Tuscany, I would recommend looking at this. Although I still feel Tuscany is the better expansion, I like having both for the variation.

Pros

Faster, cleaner starts and better pacing, especially at 5–6 players
More agency through face-up cards, improved bonuses, and Expert perks
Stronger incentives to make wine, with a satisfying end-game conversion for leftovers

Cons

Not compatible with Viticulture World, which keeps its own board, which is a small shame, but I only really mention because I cannot think of anything else to say here in the cons!

Overall, Bordeaux feels like Viticulture with the rough edges polished and the flavours dialled in, familiar, richer, and a bit more grown-up without losing the fun. It's quicker, but richer. The strategy is more complex, but the game flows faster and smoother. The experience is enhanced, but the game time is reduced. It feels like a trick, but it isn't. It's just good design. If your table already loves the vineyard life, this one is an easy pour, and yes, it is very easy to get carried away. I am blown away that after all these years this wonderful game continues to get better and better. Like a good wine...